US sees Iran behind hostage photos of ex-FBI agent

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

This undated handout photo provided by the family of Robert Levinson, shows retired-FBI agent Robert Levinson. Levinson, 64, went missing on the Iranian island of Kish in March 2007. Levinson's family received these photographs of him in April 2011. U.S officials suspect the Iranians or its proxies are holding Levinson hostage. (AP Photo/Levinson Family)

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Two years after a hostage video and photographs of retired FBI agent Robert Levinson raised the possibility that the missing American was being held by terrorists, U.S. officials now see the government of Iran behind the images, intelligence officials told The Associated Press.

Levinson, a private investigator, disappeared in 2007 on the Iranian island of Kish. The Iranian government has repeatedly denied knowing anything about his disappearance, and the disturbing video and photos that Levinson's family received in late 2010 and early 2011 seemed to give credence to the idea.

The extraordinary photos ? showing Levinson's hair wild and gray, his beard long and unkempt ? are being seen for the first time publicly after the family provided copies to the AP. The video has been previously released.

In response to Iran's repeated denials, and amid secret conversations with Iran's government, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement in March 2011 that Levinson was being held somewhere in South Asia. The implication was that Levinson might be in the hands of terrorist group or criminal organization somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan.

The statement was a goodwill gesture to Iran, one that the U.S. hoped would prod Tehran to help bring him home.

But nothing happened.

Two years later, with the investigation stalled, the consensus now among some U.S. officials involved in the case is that despite years of denials, Iran's intelligence service was almost certainly behind the 54-second video and five photographs of Levinson that were emailed anonymously to his family. The tradecraft used to send those items was too good, indicating professional spies were behind them, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly. While everything dealing with Iran is murky, their conclusion is based on the U.S. government's best intelligence analysis.

The photos, for example, portray Levinson in an orange jumpsuit like those worn by detainees at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay. The family received them via email in April 2011. In each photo, he held a sign bearing a different message.

"I am here in Guantanamo," one said. "Do you know where it is?"

Another read, "This is the result of 30 years serving for USA."

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has personally and repeatedly criticized the U.S. over its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

U.S. operatives in Afghanistan managed to trace the cellphone used to send the photographs, officials said. But the owner had nothing to do with the photos, and the trail went cold.

It was that way, too, with the hostage video the family received. It was sent from a cyber cafe in Pakistan in November 2010. The video depicted a haggard Levinson, who said he was being held by a "group." In the background, Pashtun wedding music can be heard. The Pashtun people live primarily in Pakistan and Afghanistan, just across Iran's eastern border.

Yet the sender left no clues to his identity and never used that email address again.

Whoever was behind the photos and video was no amateur, U.S. authorities concluded. They made no mistakes, leading investigators to conclude it had to be a professional intelligence service like Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security.

Levinson's wife, Christine, provided the photos to The Associated Press because she felt her husband's disappearance was not getting the attention it deserves from the government.

"There isn't any pressure on Iran to resolve this," she said. "It's been much too long."

Though U.S. diplomats and the FBI have tried behind the scenes to find Levinson, of Coral Springs, Fla., and bring him home, both presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama have said little about his case and have applied little public pressure on Iran for more information about Levinson's whereabouts.

Christine Levinson has watched more public pressure result in Iran's release of a trio of hikers, a journalist named Roxana Saberi and a team of British sailors captured by the Iranian Navy. Everyone has come home except her husband.

Washington's quiet diplomacy, meanwhile, has yielded scant results beyond the Iranian president's promise to help find Levinson.

"We assumed there would be some kind of follow-up and we didn't get any," Christine Levinson said. "After those pictures came, we received nothing."

In one meeting between the two countries, the Iranians told the U.S. that they were looking for Levinson and were conducting raids in Baluchistan, a mountainous region that includes parts of Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said. But the U.S. ultimately concluded that the Iranians made up the story. There were no raids, and officials determined that the episode was a ruse by Iranian counterintelligence to learn how U.S. intelligence agencies work.

In a statement late Tuesday, Alireza Miryusefi, a spokesman for Iran's U.N. Mission, said the Iranian government has been assisting the Levinson family to find the ex-FBI agent. "Even his family traveled to Iran and were accommodated by the government. Further investigation proved that Levinson is not in Iran and there is no single evidence that he is in Iran."

The spokesman added, "It is a very important to find an FBI agent who had traveled to a free zone of Iran, which if he is found, then the U.S. should explain why the said agent has been sent to Iran and what was his mission."

An expert on Russian organized crime, Levinson retired from the FBI in 1998 and became a private investigator. He was investigating cigarette smuggling in early 2007, and his family has said that took him to the Iranian island of Kish, where he was last seen. Kish is a popular resort area and a hotbed of smuggling and organized crime. It is also a free trade zone, meaning U.S. citizens do not need visas to travel there.

FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire said, "As we near the sixth anniversary of his disappearance, the FBI remains committed to bringing Bob home safely to his family."

In an interview, Levinson's wife said that because her husband disappeared in Iran, she believes her husband is still being held there. She doesn't think the U.S. government has put enough pressure on Iran to release her husband.

"It needs to come front and center again," Levinson said. "There needs to be a lot more public outcry."

She said she has met with Obama and John Brennan, Obama's counterterrorism czar and nominee to run the CIA. She said that both men pledged to do everything they could to free her husband. Now, nearly six years after his disappearance, she thinks Iran is being let off the hook.

"He's a good man," she said. "He just doesn't deserve this."

Meanwhile, Robert Levinson will miss another family milestone when his oldest daughter Susan gets married in February.

"He's missed so many," his wife said. "It's very upsetting."

___

Contact the Washington investigative team at DCinvestigations (at) ap.org.

___

Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-01-09-Missing%20American-Iran/id-6dec64920ab940529debbdf711075e09

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Management, reporters defuse China censorship spat

A supporter of the Southern Weekly newspaper holds up a protest banner which reads "Support Southern Weekly, boycott news censorship and return my freedom of speech" outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. Free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in a southern Chinese city Tuesday as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

A supporter of the Southern Weekly newspaper holds up a protest banner which reads "Support Southern Weekly, boycott news censorship and return my freedom of speech" outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. Free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in a southern Chinese city Tuesday as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

Supporters of the Southern Weekly newspaper gather near a banner that reads "Safety and independence of the press is the foundation for peace and democracy, violation of press freedom is violating international law, violating humans, violating freedom itself, violating all that the United nations represents... Secretary General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon", calling for press freedom outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

A supporter of Southern Weekly newspaper wears a Guy Fawkes mask while protesting with a banner that reads "1.3 billion Chinese have rights to their own voice and do not want to be represented'' outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. Free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in a southern Chinese city Tuesday as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

Communist loyalists stage a counter-protest with a portrait of former Chinese leader Mao Zedong against supporters of the Southern Weekly newspaper outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. Free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in a southern Chinese city Tuesday as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

A Communist loyalist holds a Chinese national flag and a banner which reads "Protect Chairman Xi, Love the Communist Party, Walk together on the road to prosperity" during a counter-protest against supporters of the Southern Weekly newspaper outside the newspaper's headquarters in Guangzhou in south China's Guangdong province Tuesday Jan. 8, 2013. Free-speech protesters in masks squared off against flag-waving communist loyalists in a southern Chinese city Tuesday as a dispute over censorship at a newspaper spilled into the broader population, with authorities shutting microblog accounts of supporters of the paper. (AP Photo) CHINA OUT

GUANGZHOU, China (AP) ? Communist Party-backed management and rebellious staff at an influential weekly newspaper stepped back Wednesday from a contentious standoff over censorship that spilled over to the wider public and turned into an unexpected test of the new Chinese leadership's tolerance for political reform.

Hopes among supporters of the Southern Weekly that the dispute would strike a blow against censorship appeared to fizzle with a tentative resolution. Under an agreement reached Tuesday, editors and reporters at the Southern Weekly will not be punished for protesting and stopping work in anger over a propaganda official's heavy-handed rewriting of a New Year's editorial last week, according to two members of the editorial staff. One, an editor, said propaganda officials will no longer directly censor content prior to publication, though other longstanding controls remain in place.

"If that's the case, we've got a small victory for the media," said David Bandurksi, an expert on Chinese media at Hong Kong University. The compromise, he said, might see censors back off the "really ham-fisted approach" they had taken in recent months.

The staff members who described the deal asked not to be identified because they feared retaliation after they and other employees were told not to speak to foreign media. Executives at the newspaper and its parent company, the state-owned Nanfang Media Group, declined comment on the agreement other than to say that staff were at work Wednesday and the Southern Weekly would publish as normal Thursday.

Aside from getting the presses rolling, the agreement appears likely to deflate the confrontation that presented a knotty challenge to Communist Party leader Xi Jinping two months after taking office. Xi has raised hopes of more liberal party rule, urging respect for the often ignored constitution, and of a wider role for the media in helping Beijing press a renewed campaign against widespread corruption.

While the crisis began over the propaganda official's rewriting of the editorial calling for better constitutional governance to include praise for the party, it soon evolved into calls for free expression and political reform by intellectuals, university students and others. That challenged what the party considers its sacrosanct control over the media, raising the stakes for Xi's leadership.

"I don't know if what we do will make a difference, but we must do this," said Xu Lin, one of perhaps a dozen supporters who gathered in protest for a third day outside the Southern Weekly's offices. "If we don't get our voices heard, we are trampled grass. We are humans, not grass."

Such defiance aside, the protests failed to attract the hundreds who had showed up Monday and Tuesday. Some 30 uniformed police officers stood guard outside the compound, which also houses parent company offices and lies off a busy street in Guangzhou, a prosperous, commercial city that has often been at the forefront of reforms.

The standoff echoed through the newsroom of the Beijing News, which is co-owned by the Nanfang Media Group and has a reputation for aggressive reporting. Editors at the newspaper all week defied an order to run a commentary that many other newspapers carried and that blamed resistance to censorship on meddling foreign forces. Then, according to accounts by reporters on microblogs, a propaganda official showed up Tuesday to insist.

At a tearful late-night meeting, staff voted to hold out, and publisher Dai Zigeng said he would resign, the accounts said. Still, the newspaper carried the commentary Wednesday in an abbreviated version that left out criticisms of the Southern Weekly and its supporters.

In seeking to end the conflicts at both newspapers, officials appeared unwilling to bend on party control. At the Southern Weekly, Hu Chunhua, the newly installed party chief of Guangdong, the province where Guangzhou is located, personally intervened, according to the editorial staff member and an academic in Beijing, who asked not to be named because officials at his university ordered him not to speak with the media.

The agreement to keep propaganda officials from censoring articles before they appear rolls back more intrusive controls put in place in recent months, but it does not mean an end to censorship. The Propaganda Department, which controls all media in China, chiefly relies on directives, self-censorship by editors and reporters and dismissal of those who do not comply to enforce the party line.

The Southern Weekly editor said it was hard to call the agreement a victory because controls still remain in place and punishments on staff, though forestalled for now, may be imposed later.

Management refused to yield to one demand from staff ? that this week's editions include an explanation of the dispute, the editor and a colleague said. It's also unclear whether editor-in-chief Huang Can who alienated staff by not resisting Tuo would be fired now or in the near future.

Censorship in Chinese media is often subtle, rather than overt, and frequently consists of bargaining between editors and their propaganda overseers. The Southern Weekly dispute was touched off after the provincial propaganda chief, Tuo Zhen, rewrote the editorial, which called for better constitutional government, to insert heavy praise for the party. The revised editorial was not submitted for review by editors before publication, violating an unwritten practice in censorship and enraging the staff, which saw it as an attack.

The Southern Weekly has been a standard-bearer for hard-edged reporting and liberal commentary since the 1990s. Throughout, senior party politicians and propaganda functionaries have repeatedly attempted to rein in the newspaper, cashiering editors and reporters who breach often unstated limits.

Even if censorship largely remains intact, the standoff has showed the breadth of support newspapers like Southern Weekly have among many Chinese, who are wired to the Internet and increasingly sophisticated in their expectations of the government.

That may give censors pause, said Bandurski, the Hong Kong University scholar: "It might make them more cautious on how they handle the media."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2013-01-09-China-Media%20Censorship/id-c3ef51d7a66f4303a5a78271266c9d99

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Dallas Real Estate in 2013: Candy's Crystal Ball Says No Bubble ...

We will be hearing a lot more in 2013 from the good folks at Houston-based Metrostudy.?MetroStudy was just acquired by Hanley Wood, a media company that produces, among other things, Builder Magazine along with media, information and marketing services for the real estate, construction and design industries. Through its operating platforms, the company churns out?digital and print publications, e-Newsletters, websites, marquee trade shows and events, market intelligence data and custom marketing solutions. The company also is North America?s leading publisher of home plans.??So it was a good match to snap up a company that analyzes and produces building data, and the acquisition gives Metrostudy a way to expand it?s geographic footprint.

And we are hearing Metrostudy right now, right here, loud and clear tell us that the real estate market, OUR real estate market, is as bright as a poached sunny side up egg.

Cue?the theme song from Rocky: the Dallas-Fort Worth new home market continued to gain momentum, grow strong during the fourth quarter of 2012, ?says David Brown, Director of Metrostudy?s Dallas-Fort Worth office. Talk about building frenzy: the new home market ended the year strong with homes starts up 21% in 2012.

We said this would happen: with new home inventory at a fourteen year low,?home builders?continue to report year-over-year gains in traffic and new contracts. ?They have had to ramp up the new starts to keep up with demand, had to.

Construction activity is now in its eighteen month of recovery with the annual starts pace 26% higher than the low during the second quarter of 2011.

Whoa, 26% higher? Bubble trouble?

No way, David told me in a quick phone convo: 100,000 people are moving to North Texas a year. Oh yes, and I can find them all on LBJ, too. We are actually under delivering the demand for homes.?Even with the surge in new starts, the amount of finished inventory in the region remained at a fourteen year low during the fourth quarter 2012.? There are only 2,800 finished vacant single family homes, townhomes and condominium units in the market.? With finished inventory remaining low and new sales growing year-over-year, the number of homes currently under construction has jumped 41% over the past year.

Candy?s Crystal ball prediction #1: Eat your Wheaties. Title companies are going to be real busy during the first half of 2013 as these homes are completed and sold.?

So you?ve got pent up demand for housing ? folks who moved here, rented, are now ready to buy. You?ve got folks with jobs since Dallas is the best place to be for your career right now.??You?ve got low interest rates still, and rents rising. People got their financials in order the last two years and are now ready to plunk down a down payment.

?Apartment numbers haven?t been as strong this last year,? says David. ?When rents go up, people buy a house.?

In 2010, we filled 22,000 rental units in DFW. In 2011, we filled 18,000. But in 2012, only 9,000 units were taken as landlords lost tenants to home ownership.

But aren?t we overbuilding the apartments, I asked? I see apartments going up everywhere! According to John Crawford?at Downtown Dallas Inc.,?residential development projects in Downtown Dallas set for 2013 completion include more than 200 units at the Continental Building and Lone Star Gas Lofts, Museum Tower?s 100 luxury luxury high rise condominiums, plus The Joule, 500 S. Ervay, Fairfield Residential?West End, 1600 Pacific, the Statler Hilton and Mill Creek. Let us not forget the Stoneleigh in Uptown and all on the blueprints for Valley View Center, and now 750 units in Frisco?.

Crawford also says we now boast 7,800 residents in the central business district and 38,000 throughout the greater downtown area, those numbers growing to 12,000 and 55,000, respectively, over the next five years, just FYI.

Candy?s Crystal Ball Prediction # 2: They won?t be happy campers unless we get rid of the stupid one-way streets in downtown Dallas, find more parking, and make it easier and safer to bike/walk/hike there.

But I digress. Getting back to the overbuilding of apartments, David says history shows we will overbuild but as long as we stay around 20,000 new units per year, the average number of absorption units, we should be OK.

I asked about investors. There is some concern that the new tax laws may make real estate investment less attractive what with higher cap gains taxes as we blocked the Fiscal Cliff. Some feel the housing recovery is being steered by investors. Certainly you can say a lot of real estate investors participated in and spurred the real estate recovery. I mean, look who?s been buying up all the foreclosures!

But Brown doesn?t think we have an investor problem, not here. That is, investors will always make up a portion of our market, but our foreclosure red zones were limited mostly to the peripherals and southern markets, the outer edge.

Candy?s Crystal Ball Prediction # 3: we will see fewer foreclosures in Dallas in 2013.

Inventory is almost scarce. My daughter and son in law are listing their condo this week, and I am petrified they may move back in with us until they find something. David says we are down to only 4 months of inventory ? 6 months is normal. Builders are seeking lots like crazy and passing on increased lot prices and labor and material costs to the buyers. In fact, Leo Savino of Significant Building & Construction tells me lots are so scarce, folks are going back to remodeling to get what they want.

Candy?s Crystal Ball Prediction #4: we will see price appreciation, perhaps even significant, in 2013.

The recovery is no longer just limited to the Park Cities,?traditionally?the high water mark in terms of North Texas home prices. House fever is spreading to more areas throughout the Metroplex.? During the early stages of the recovery, the northern suburbs were leading the gains in starts.? During the second half of 2012 gains began to spread to suburbs throughout the remainder of the region.? During the fourth quarter the eastern suburbs of Rowlett, Rockwall, Forney, Kaufman County and Royse City reported a significant jump in housing starts.? Grand Prairie, Crowley, and Southwest Tarrant County in the southern half of the Metroplex also saw an increase in starts during the last quarter, all this according to Metrostudy.

The biggest surge of building activity in Dallas. says Brown, is in Frisco and inching out. Allen is pricier and there?s not much left. Consumers cannot eat up the $300,000 new home product the builders are dishing out in Frisco fast enough. New home starts were up the most for homes priced between $200,000 and $500,000 during the fourth quarter of 2012.

(Another song in my head: Pete Seeger?s?If I Had A Hammer...)

Candy?s Crystal Ball Prediction #5: The Bubble is not the only place to have a quality life in Dallas. More folks will tire of taxes/crime/schools/courts in Dallas County and head north to the hinterlands. And they will all live happily ever after.

Source: http://www.candysdirt.com/2013/01/08/dallas-real-estate-in-2013-candys-crystal-ball-says-no-bubble-trouble-just-look-under-the-seat-cushions-for-inventory/

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Common STD grows resistant to treatment in North America

The most commonly acquired sexually transmitted infections (STIs) in the U.S., chlamydia and gonorrhea, are usually cleared out swiftly and easily with a dose of oral antibiotics. But one of these infections is growing bold and finding ways to evade treatment. More than 321,000 cases of gonorrhea are reported each year in the U.S. alone--and the actual number of annual infections is probably much higher because many people do not experience symptoms. The infection has lost much of its social stigma since antibiotics were enlisted to fight it off earlier last century. But left untreated today, it can still cause pelvic inflammation, severe pregnancy complications and female infertility. Its presence increases the odds of an infection with HIV, and babies born to women with untreated gonorrhea are at risk of blindness. Although antibiotics have reduced this infection to little more than a modern-day inconvenience for most, the bacterium (Neisseria gonorrhoeae) has been steadily evolving to knock out medical weapons. Sulfonamides ceased to be effective in treating it in the 1940s; penicillins and tetracyclines lost effectiveness in the 1970s and '80s; and fluoroquinolones were taken off the treatment table in 2007. The last simple treatment, a class of antibiotics called cephalosporins, appears to be weakening against gonorrhea infections worldwide. And that drug resistance has now reached North America in sizable numbers, according to a new study, published online January 8 in JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical Association. Resistance to the commonly prescribed oral antibiotic cefixime (a cephalosporin) was first detected several years ago in Japan. Since then, public health officials have been watching the phenomenon spread to Europe and now to North America. For the new study, researchers led by Vanessa Allen, of Public Health Ontario, examined people who were treated for gonorrhea with cefixime at a clinic in Toronto. The clinic required people to come in for a follow-up appointment two to four weeks later to make sure their infection had been cleared; it also surveyed patients about whether they might have been exposed to the infection since their initial visit. These practices allowed the researchers to gather data on how often the drug failed to work. Of 133 patients who received treatment and returned for their follow-up appointment for testing, 6.77 percent had failed to respond to treatment, which corresponds to about one in 15 infections. Drug-resistant gonorrhea has officially arrived in North America. Other experts in the field call "its arrival deeply troubling; clinicians now face the emergence of cephalosporin-resistant N. gonorrhoeae without any well-studied, effective backup treatment options," observed a team of researchers led by Robert Kirkcaldy, of the Division of STD Prevention at the CDC, in an essay published in the same issue of JAMA. And, they noted, as there are no proven alternative treatment waiting in the drug development wings, " the antibiotic pipeline is running dry." And our ability to track this spreading resistance has actually been hampered by the advent of rapid genetic screening. Traditional tests grew cultures of the bacteria in the lab, which could then be analyzed for strain variety and resistance profiles. Genetic testing, however, just detects the presence of the infection without revealing further details. A survey completed in 2007 showed that even then only about 5 percent of U.S. laboratories tested for gonorrhea via culture. And follow-up tests after treatment are not technically recommended for most cases. The clinic used in the study might present a higher-than-average rate of gonorrhea infection in general because many of its patients are men who have had sexual encounters with other men, a population that, so far, has shown a higher rate of infections with genetic propensity to resist antibiotic treatment. Previous research had pinpointed the presence of genes in U.S. cases that would indicate a possible resistance to cefixime. But this study was able to establish the rate at which the drug actually failed to treat the infection. In light of growing drug-resistance worldwide, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently recommended clinicians no longer prescribe a single antibiotic treatment. Instead, they now advise that patients receive an injection of ceftriaxone as well as a week-long course of oral azithromycin or doxycycline. Kirkcaldy and his colleagues also recommend that, "all patients treated for gonorrhea should be given risk reduction counseling, offered condoms and retested for gonorrhea three months after treatment," they noted in their essay. "Clinicians must remain vigilant for cephalosporin treatment failures and report suspected cases to the local or state health department," Kirkcaldy and his colleagues wrote. "Patients with persistent or recurrent symptoms shortly after treatment should be retested for gonorrhea by culture." Follow Scientific American on Twitter @SciAm and @SciamBlogs. Visit ScientificAmerican.com for the latest in science, health and technology news.
? 2013 ScientificAmerican.com. All rights reserved.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/common-std-grows-resistant-treatment-north-america-220300738.html

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South Sudan arrests 2 state TV journalists

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) ? A journalists group says two reporters working for state TV in South Sudan have been arrested without charge.

The Committee to Protect Journalists says the journalists were arrested following protests and ethnic clashes last month in the northwestern town of Wau that killed about a dozen people. Video of one clash showed police opening fire on protesters.

The New York-based CPJ says Louis Pasquale and Ashab Khamis are being held in prison. Three other state journalists were arrested and released, it said.

CPJ said local journalists suspect the arrests are in retaliation for the video being passed on to international media outlets. South Sudan's information minister didn't answer calls Monday seeking comment.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/south-sudan-arrests-2-state-tv-journalists-142706728.html

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Video: Hagel?s nomination laced with controversy

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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/nightly-news/50391428/

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'Country Wife' writer Pat Leimbach dies at age 85 ? The Chronicle ...

Pat Leimbach, seen in September in this photo from the family, wrote her column for nearly four decades.

Her words were the voice of Americana that kept readers coming back to The Chronicle-Telegram for more than 38 years and gave city slickers an up close and personal look at life on a thriving farm.

But Pat Leimbach was no country bumpkin.

The wife and mother was also a published author, accomplished public speaker and agriculture advocate who lived to bridge the educational gap between the food people eat and the field in which it is grown.

Leimbach, who penned ?The Country Wife? columns from 1965 to 2003, died Saturday at the Kingston of Vermilion, a nursing and rehabilitation center, following a brief illness. She was 85.

Followers of her column, which were mainly centered on her family, their farm and the agriculture industry, already know much about Leimbach?s life. Part of what made Leimbach?s columns so intimate was her willingness to write about her private life.

?There was very little she wouldn?t speak on or write about,? said her son, Orrin Leimbach. ?To a certain extent, I think that?s what made her popular. She was very open about herself and the rest of us in her writing. She would bring out things that many of her readers could relate to.?

Leimbach?s column was also popular because they were funny. Humor carried Leimbach through life, she said during an interview in 2007.

?It?s one of those professions you have to learn to laugh a lot or you will cry a lot,? she said back in 2007. ?I never looked at anything without looking at the funny and that for me was a lifesaver.?

Still, she touched on more serious topics from time to time. In one such column, she wrote about politics in Iran after reading about it for her book club. It was one of her last columns.

Gunver Lodge, Leimbach?s sister-in-law, said Leimbach was always one of the most interesting people she ever met. She met the small woman with a big heart as an exchange student who came to stay with Leimbach?s family. She eventually married Leimbach?s brother, William Penton.

?Ever since I met her back in 1975, she was very special to me,? Lodge said. ?She taught me a lot. In her, I saw a woman who was always anxious to experience new things and go to any length to do so.?

Lodge said Leimbach taught her how to bake a pie but even had her own mishaps with baking that she took in stride.

?Oh, I remember for my 50th birthday, my family threw me a surprise party and Pat was to bake the cake,? Lodge said. ?Well, she started late and the frosting was fairly runny as she drove to my house. She had to put her hand on the cake to push it up because the cake was sliding a bit. It became the joke of the night about how Pat had her hand in the frosting.?

Marsha DePalma, a longtime friend, may have met Leimbach in 1988, but loved her work for many years prior. She was gifted with a copy of Leimbach?s first book in 1973 and immediately thought she and Leimbach were kindred spirits.

Many years later when she moved to Brownhelm Township, she received an invitation to dinner at the Leimbach house and a 24-year friendship started from that first meeting.

?I felt like I was going to meet the queen,? DePalma said. ?I was so honored and she was just so warm and generous.?

Over the years, Leimbach became an inspiration to DePalma.

?I was always said I was going to own my own business, and whenever I spoke of it Pat would say you are young enough, you can do it,? DePalma said.

DePalma now runs the Laurel Run Cooking School in Brownhelm Township.

?She kind of helped you elevate your own dreams by knowing her,? she said.

Leimbach?s life was a mix of contradictions that her son said she enjoyed sharing with the world.

?It surprised people that this rural woman could raise to higher levels,? Orrin said. ?It was her viewpoint that a lot of people were not educated on farming and farm life and that they viewed farmers as a bunch of hicks.?

?But she knew they were missing valuable education about their food source and rural life,? added Orrin?s wife, Cathie Leimbach.

While some saw just a farm wife from the Midwest, Leimbach was a graduate of Case Western Reserve University and did graduate study at McGill University in Montreal. For a number of years she was a language teacher, before having her first child shortly after marrying her husband, Paul.

She published three books of her columns ? ?A Thread of Blue Denim,? ?All My Meadows? and ?A Harvest of Bittersweet? ? and was invited to speak before groups in 48 states and five Canadian provinces and appeared on TV programs like ?The Today Show? and ?Larry King Live.?

Leimbach?s farm in Brownhelm Township has survived five generations and still is going strong as a grain farm with 260 farmable acres.

Since retiring from her column, Leimbach was active ? enjoying a social life with friends and family in the area that included book clubs to live theater to non-mainstream movies shown at Lorain County Community College. She continued to attend a number of agriculture-related conferences.

In 2007, she was awarded the LEAVEN award by the American Agri-Women. LEAVEN is an acronym for Loyalty, Enthusiasm, Anticipatory, Valiant, Effectiveness and Nurturing.

Cathie Leimbach said it would probably surprise people, but her mother-in-law loved to share her opinions with young college students, especially those from Oberlin College.

?When they met her they were really shocked to learn a small woman on a farm in the Midwest had written books, traveled to Europe and had a writing and speaking career that spans years,? Cathie Leimbach said. ?Her job was to get first year Oberlin students to open their minds, and meeting Pat did just that.?

Biology Professor Mary Garvin arranged the visits to the Leimbach farm.

?It gave students an opportunity to experience the farmer?s point of view,? she said. ?Pat was such a giving and intellectually engaged person that she was the perfect conduit to help students understand the farmer?s point of view. She very elegantly showed them the connection between agriculture, economy, religion and literature. It was just wonderful to watch. She was a master teacher and she commanded their respect very easily.?

Leimbach was a member of the Brownhelm Congregational United Church of Christ and a founding member of the Brownhelm Historical Association.

She was preceded in death her husband of 41 years, Paul, and two sons, Dane and Ted.

A strong proponent of organ donation, Orrin Leimbach said his mother?s body was donated to the College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University.

Contact Lisa Roberson at 329-7121 or lroberson@chroniclet.com.

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Source: http://chronicle.northcoastnow.com/2013/01/08/%E2%80%98country-wife%E2%80%99-writer-pat-leimbach-dies-at-age-85/

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